Catalan premier Artur Mas has cast a Sept 27 regional election as a de facto referendum on secession from Spain, with a win for his coalition a mandate for a unilateral declaration of independence ....... “We pay the same taxes as elsewhere in Spain and have more expensive universities and worse infrastructure. I have to pay €14 (£10) today in tolls to drive from Girona and back when you can cross the whole of Andalucia for free”. ....... Support for independence has swelled over recent years in Catalonia, a regional economic powerhouse whose Catalan identity and language was severely repressed under the dictator General Francisco Franco. Police said 1.4 million people attended Friday's rally. But for those who stayed away, the highly choreographed demonstration constituted a hijacking of Catalonia’s national celebration for political purposes for the fourth year in a row. ....... “I have never been interested in waving any national flag, neither a Spanish nor a Catalan one. And now even less because I think that CiU has utilised the fallout from the economic crisis to blame the rest of Spain for the fact that Catalonia has also suffered,” said a public employee from Barcelona who preferred not to be named. ...... Esther Puig, who runs a small cosmetics business in Martorell, outside Barcelona, said she was not an independence supporter five years ago. “But now I don’t see any other choice”. ...... She cited the negative reaction of Spain’s government to even negotiate a fiscal pact with Catalan leader Artur Mas as a key moment in her conversion. “We Catalans do feel solidarity with other regions of Spain which don’t have the same economic capacity, but then we see how we are insulted in the Spanish media just for asking for a change. Now when we leave Catalonia, we feel looked down upon.” ...... Others mentioned the 2010 Constitutional Court decision to weaken the region’s autonomy statute, striking off the word “nation” from the preamble. “We have been scorned and humiliated,” said 59-year-old nurse Dolores. “But we are very patient”. ..... Luis Mateo, born in Aragon 74 years ago but who moved to Barcelona in 1963, said he had become convinced of the separatist cause and warned that “the moment will come when people will explode” if Madrid continues to block the drive for independence.

Local police said 1.4 million people turned out but the Spanish government put the figure at no more than 550,000. ....... A separatist coalition of parties is leading the polls ahead of Catalonia's regional elections this month. ....... The Together For Yes campaign says if it wins a majority in the regional assembly it will push through plans for an independent Catalan state. ..... But the Spanish government has promised to block any move to break away. Madrid said an unofficial Catalan referendum last November was invalid....... The November poll saw 80% of voters back independence but turnout was just 40%. ..... "The goal is to become independent, because we're suffocating - economically and emotionally," Silvia Palomares told Reuters. ..... Polls suggests a majority of Catalans favour a referendum on independence but are evenly divided over whether they want to secede. ...... The Spanish government says it will block any unilateral declaration of independence ..... Such a move would be unprecedented in the history of the European Union

While many nations are adopting English, Pakistan is going the opposite way, with the Supreme Court ruling for it to be replaced with Urdu as the official language. ..... Urdu is beautiful, vastly expressive, and the medium of some of the most powerful literature generated in the Indian sub-continent over the last two or three centuries. ..... It is spoken by many in Pakistan, especially in the main urban centres. ........ But there is no region in Pakistan which can be categorised as originally Urdu-speaking. .....

Many believe the seeds of secession in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) were sown when Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah announced in 1948 that Urdu alone would be the state language of Pakistan, though East Pakistan could use Bengali as its provincial language..... East Pakistan, which was home to a majority of the Pakistani population who had hoped Bengali would become the second state language after Urdu, seceded in 1971.

...... Since the 1990s, successive governments have set up institutions to research and create technical Urdu terms for use in the five main fields, namely government, administration, judiciary, military and education. ...... In 2005, the head of the National Language Promotion Department (NLPD), Prof Fateh Mohammad Malik, "reported that there was enough vocabulary to shift all government from English to Urdu if desired," writes Dr Tariq Rehman, a Lahore-based linguist and academic, in a recent newspaper column.

Last year, in an unofficial referendum, 80pc voted to leave Spain, on a turnout of 40pc. ..... A move for Catalan independence could throw the EU into a new political crisis and create havoc for the Spanish economy, which is only just emerging from a long downturn........ Catalonia has traditionally been Spain’s industrial and economic powerhouse, but the separatist movement has been growing in strength for decades. ........ The answer to this goes back to at least 1469, when the crown of Aragon and Catalonia passed into Castilian control with the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. Catalonia had been a powerful sovereign state with its own parliament up to 1162, when it unified with Aragon. But its absorption into Castile, run from Madrid, marked something of a reverse takeover. The Catalan state was officially abolished in 1714; many Catalans believe their culture, traditions and language have been steadily eroded ever since, reaching a nadir under the dictatorship of General Franco (1939-1975).........

Since the restoration of democracy in the late 1970s, Catalonia has been one of Spain’s 17 autonomous communities.

But calls for full independence have continued to grow, particularly after the financial crash of 2007-8 and the austerity measures imposed by former socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and his conservative successor Mariano Rajoy. ......... One of the Catalans’ chief complaints is that their tax revenue subsidises other parts of Spain: in 2010, Catalans contributed €61.87bn in taxes and fees to the Spanish Government, but only got back €45.33bn...... The Catalan government has said it could claw back 8pc of its GDP if it didn’t have to make fiscal transfers to the Spanish government...... 2.2 million voters out of an eligible 5.4 million voted in an unofficial plebiscite on November 9, 2014, with 80.7pc declaring themselves in favour of independence. The central government in Madrid had fought strenuously to block the vote. ....... If the pro-independence bloc holds a majority, it could begin moves to make a formal declaration of independence within 18 months, such as drawing up a Catalan constitution. .......

Pro-independence campaigners have threatened to make an immediate declaration should Madrid try to halt the process.

...... The population of Catalonia makes up 16.1pc of Spain’s 46.6 million ..... Mas has talked openly about setting up "state structures" such as a new tax authority, social security, a diplomatic service, a central bank and even a defence force. "It would be impossible for Catalonia not to have its own defence structure, even though it would be a light one,"........ 85pc: Proportion of the population that speaks Catalan, the region’s primary language. An estimated

10 million speak Catalan worldwide

- primarily in Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and France ...... 9th: Catalan’s ranking on the list of the most widely spoken languages in Europe. It is not, however, on the EU’s list of 24 official languages ......

....... €209bn: Catalonia’s GDP in 2014. Spain’s was €1 trillion ..... Rajoy himself has a fight on his hands to cling to power, with Spain due to hold a general election by December 20. He will try to shore up his core vote by taking a hardline stance on Catalan separatism. ........ a poll in July showing that Catalan support for breaking away had fallen to 40pc, from 50pc two years ago. ...... at least one report has suggested that by 2030, the region could be significantly better off as an independent state. ...... “Catalan secession from Spain is beneficial for Catalonia in all the cases examined, reflecting to a large extent the positive impact from terminating Catalonia’s net fiscal transfers to the rest of Spain.” ...... Catalonia’s GDP is €209bn, roughly on a par with that of Portugal. But its economy would almost certainly take a hit in the wake of a split, as occurred with the Czech Republic and Slovakia on their mostly amicable separation in 1993. ...... Were Catalonia to be cast out of the EU, it would have to introduce a new currency; serve a public debt in a foreign currency without access to bond markets; and have restricted access to the EU market. It would be unable to call upon the help of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the European Central Bank (ECB), which were both central in bailing out Greece.......... Spain would become Catalonia’s biggest trading partner, but Madrid could seek to recoup some of the billions it would lose in tax revenue from the region by imposing duties on Catalan goods and services......... Foreign investors may also think twice about putting money into the breakaway state while legal and political instability exists.

Scotland, Flanders and Catalonia are among the European regions that could be better off going it alone, says Deutsche Bank..... regions in Spain, Italy, Belgium, and even the UK that could potentially benefit from independence. ...... Relatively rich parts of these countries have been required to prop up their less prosperous peers, according to the report, with the prospect of lower tax burdens fuelling an appetite for autonomy.......

As separatist movements across Europe have been given a boost by non-binding polls in Spain’s Catalonia and Italy’s Veneto last year, pushes to splinter across the continent have gained traction.

...... These regions, along with the Basque country and Navarre in Spain, Flanders in Belgium, South Tyrol in Italy, and Scotland ....... All but one of the seven regions named in the report boast per capita incomes higher than their nation’s respective averages. ....... “Nearly all the regions are among the wealthiest in their respective countries” ..... “The patently unequal treatment of regions appears detrimental to the general acceptance of the current system.” ...... Catalonia’s relative economic strength provides its population with an incentive to forge its on path, as they are burdened by contributions to the rest of Spain equivalent to 4.35pc of the area’s GDP. ...... Other regions such as Navarre and the Basque Country benefit from special autonomy status, and are exempt from redistributive transfers, yet independence retains strong popular appeal. The populations of these regions share a cultural heritage, with a common Basque identity which has propelled a drive for separation from Spain. ......

“secession from an existing state structure harbours huge economics risks”.

..... The government of smaller countries, such as Austria, tend to pay punitive amounts to borrow from financial markets. “Even though Austria has a higher per capita GDP and lower sovereign debt [than Germany] … the risk premium on Austrian bonds is higher,” Deutsche Bank said.

There is a concrete mathematical theory called the butterfly effect. A butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon forest could be the reason a cyclone hit Bangladesh. What happened in Nepal in April 2006, January-February 2007, and February 2008 were political cyclones. I was the butterfly flapping my wings in New York City. In April 2006, over a period of 19 days, about eight million people out of the country's 27 million came out into the streets to shut the country down completely to force a dictator out.